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The Live Mint: Thousands gather for Pakistan Sufi cleric’s protest march on capital

Muhammad Tahirul Qadri in limelight since returning home from Canada weeks ago
calling for electoral reform

Mubasher Bukhari
First Published: Mon, Jan 14 2013. 03 57 PM IST

Islamabad: Thousands of Pakistanis converged on the capital Monday to join a
march planned by Sufi cleric Muhammad Tahirul Qadri calling for the indefinite delay
of elections and a crackdown on government corruption and inefficiency.

The cleric, who has won instant celebrity since returning home from Canada weeks
ago calling for electoral reform, wants an interim government to root out graft
and mismanagement that have caused chronic energy shortages, stunted growth and
allowed crime and a Taliban insurgency to flourish.

His calls have divided Pakistanis. Some see him as a reformist champion, like
25-year-old Gulshan Irshad, a public school teacher in the central Punjabi town
of Gujranwala who says she hasn’t been paid in two years.

“Officials want a bribe for releasing my salary but I won’t give in to corruption,”
she said. “He (Qadri) is the first person who wants to change the whole corrupt
system.”

Others see Qadri a potential stooge for the military, which has a history of
coups and interfering in elections. They say his demands are unconstitutional and
replacing an elected government with an unelected one will not help accountability.

Leading television anchors have questioned the source of his funds for a lavish
media campaign and fleets of buses to transport supporters. Qadri says most of the
money came from donations from those fed up with the current administration.

Police in full riot gear were stationed on street corners in Islamabad where
shipping containers blocked off key routes to government offices and embassies.

Qadri has promised to bring a million people on to the streets to protest, but
his march appeared limited to several thousand as of 0900 GMT. Activists were busy
setting up microphones and soup kitchens for the demonstrators.

“I brought blankets and food with me, believing we will stay and protest for
two or three days,” said Qamar Ghazi, 30, from the northern town of Mianwali.

The protest comes on the heels of a three-day sit-in by Hazara Shiites in Quetta,
capital of eastern Balochistan province, protesting against one of the worst sectarian
attacks in the country’s history in which 96 of their community were killed.

After thousands of Shiites sat in the roads by the bodies of their dead, the
federal government finally gave in to the one of the protesters’ key demands and
sacked the provincial government, saying it had not done enough to protect citizens.
REUTERS